One only has to see Montréal's version of Wall Street to understand the city's claim to be the metropolis of Canada in earlier years. Banks and insurance companies competed not only on their respective markets but also in their architecture, raising their head office buildings "to improbable heights", as a 1910 tourist brochure put it. Indeed, tourists of the day marvelled at these eight- to ten-storey skyscrapers, a reflection of the lofty ambitions of Montréal's barons of finance, most of them British and especially Scottish.

But when you get there, don't just admire the magnificent façades. Step inside and wander around the lobbies, some of them as vast as cathedrals.